11 month edition

Thanks for all your fantastic, loving advice. We ended up not going to the doctor, mostly because they weren't open on the day after Thanksgiving and going to the ER seemed more dangerous than the freakin' cold. Instead we loaded him up on pain meds and Vicks-ed the hell out of the boy and I'm happy to report that he's feeling much better. He's still a glazed donut (best Cosby story ever) and continues to cough up a storm but his energy level is sky high. Getting liquids down him is still a trial but he's taken a reasonable amount of formula today so I'm not as concerned. Man, sick babies are scary.

What's also scary? CHRISTMAS. We're not doing presents this year. Between the economy and our teeny abode, shelling out for stuff we don't need seems dumb. Instead we're thinking about sponsoring a child. The hardest part is finding an organization that isn't so in your face Jesus loving. Nothing wrong with Jesus - happen to think he was pretty amazing - but my own personal preference is to go with a slightly more secular place. (Or a tolerant religious one.) We had this same problem when we were looking to adopt. The places we were interested in required a Statement of Faith and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Partially because I'm only vaguely faith-y myself (I believe in something enough to pray, but I'm not sure what that something is) but also because of the implication that those who aren't True Believers are undeserving of children. But enough of my bias. Has anyone sponsored a child? And wasn't Sally Struthers great on Gilmore Girls?

In other child-related news, the boy is standing. Not for any length of time and not by himself yet, but he's definitely learning how to pull himself up. And of course that's ALL HE WANTS TO DO. Pull up, fall down, pull up, fall down, pull up, pause for coughing fit, fall down. And when he's not standing, he's crawling like a pro. Man he's fast! Like, "holy shit, that kid is fast" fast! It's a little unsettling. I used to have roughly 10 seconds once I heard the slap-slap of baby knees to finish up my Facebooking but now? Please. He's in the diaper pail before I can even stand up. (Seriously, the diaper pail? What's the obsession?)

His vocabulary is expanding a bit. Now in addition to the standards (hi, mama, dada, cat, good) we've picked up "this" and "that", and once I swear I heard him say "all done". He is also clapping at the appropriate part of "If You're Happy And You Know It" and waving bye-bye, which technically he was supposed to do months ago but we're more of a shout hooray, kiss good-bye family so I can't blame him for not catching on.

Oh, he has also figured out how to throw overhanded. Please pray for our television set.